Magen Marie Photography
We had the opportunity to catch up with award-winning actor-creator-producer-writer Deena Dill. She’s created and sold scripted and non-fiction content to networks and production companies in the US and internationally, and she even won a Rose d’Or Award for “Best International Game Show” in honor of Oh Sit!, a game show she co-created, executive produced and wrote for The CW. Now she’s about to step back in front of the camera in the recurring role of Junipur Purifoy on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network’s new soapy drama Ambitions that premiered on June 1 8 th.
Hi, Deena! Thank you for granting this interview. Can you tell us a little more about AMBITIONS?
Thanks for wanting to interview me. And yes! Ambitions is a multi-generational family saga about 5 interconnected families who fight and feud and break up and make-up with each other over personal issues, business dealings, politics, and money. Every character on the show is an ambitious, cut-throat, scheming scoundrel. The clothes and the world are sexy and glamorous and, well, one of the taglines for the show is “Everyone wants to be on top,” so get ready, it’s juicy and steamy.
It’s got a big ensemble cast that includes Robin Givens, Brian White, Essence Atkins, Kendrick Cross, Brely Evans, Erica Page. Lots of recurring characters like Brian Bosworth, Christina Kirkman, Gino Anthony Pesi, Kayla Smith, Donna Briscoe, Felisha Terrell, me, and I know I’m leaving a few people out and I’m sorry because I really like everyone on this show so much.
What is your character like?
My character is Juniper Purifoy. I’m a sharp-tongued socialite with questionable loyalties. I’m married to the rich and ruthless Hunter Purifoy played by Brian Bosworth and we have a daughter, Lori who is brilliant, beautiful and wild, wild, wild, played by Christina Kirkman. I’m very protective of my baby girl and not afraid to fight for my family.
How has the experience been for you?
Seriously, it’s one of the best experiences of my career so far. It’s executive produced by the amazing Will Packer for the Oprah Winfrey Network. What an honor and thrill to get to have those names on my resume! I feel blessed to be part of it.
As an actress, it’s great fun to play a sassy character with no filter, but it’s also the environment that’s made it so enjoyable. Will Packer along with the creator, Jamey Giddens, EP’s Sheila Ducksworth and Kevin Arkadie, the casting director George Pierre, and line producer Dianne Ashford are all so talented and kind, and they have created an incredible atmosphere of support and collaboration. The executives I met from OWN, Tina Perry and Carla Gardini, are all talented and generous. And the cast of regular and recurring characters are genuinely nice and so, so funny.
You have extensive acting credits in all genres, but you’re also a successful multi-hyphenate — creator-producer-writer. You’ve won film festivals with comedy pilots you executive produced, sold and produced non-fiction shows, had a script you wrote optioned, and created and executive produced game shows. Deena, it’s hard to ignore the diversity of genres and jobs on your resume. Is that by design?
I think that’s your nice way of saying you think I have a weird career, and I agree, I do. Yes, it’s a bit by design. I have varied tastes in the entertainment I watch, and it’s the same with what I want to create and act in as well.
I’m going to attribute my eclectic career to a piece of awesome advice a director gave me. Early in my career a director I was working with, Richard Gabai, politely asked why I didn’t have very many credits at my age. I mean gasp… I was almost 30. I explained I was new to acting, it was a career change for me. He told me he thought I was a pretty dang good actor but those other women my age were already “names.” He said I was funny and smart and that maybe I should write or produce because he would hate for me to end up a bitter, out of work actor. So I started exploring options. Thanks, Richard. It seems to be working out ok.
Thus far, what are some of your favorite experiences working in the industry?
Well, there are so many because I am truly blessed to love my job and/or jobs, I guess I should say. My favorite experiences are the surreal moments on the acting side, and on the producing side, the feelings of accomplishment when lots of hard work come to fruition in a completed project.
I grew up in the small town of Dayton, TN and as a kid, I never thought about being an actor. So, it’s almost unreal to me when things happen like: Will Packer and Oprah Winfrey hire me and then they send ME a cast gift, Robert DeNiro and Zac Efron walk on set before doing a scene and DeNiro steps on my toe and says, “Oh excuse me, you must be Deena,” William Shatner played a great practical joke on me on the set of Boston Legal, one of my very first jobs… I mean really? There’s Captain Kirk and he has a sense of humor? Then, years later, he tweets that he loves the new sci-fi show I’m on and likes to hate my character. Currently, I’m married to “The BOZ” and having screaming matches with Robin Givens on Ambitions. They were both hugely famous when I was in high school. My high school boyfriend even had a poster of Boz on his wall. This stuff is so fun and odd to me, I will never lose the awe and amusement of these cool moments.
On a more serious note, the kids’ shows I’ve acted on have led to some of my favorite and most profound life experiences by providing me opportunities to work more extensively with children’s charities and children in need. When I was on iCarly, the show, as well as individual actors, got lots of request for kids to come to set or to have visits from the cast. I tried to do a lot of that. Then, I got involved with Special Olympics, Read Across America, several Children’s Hospitals, and Make-a-Wish Foundation. There is nothing in the whole world that can compare to making these children feel happiness and love.
And what about the writing / producing side? A favorite experience?
Well, seeing any project all the way through from concept to production to post-production… there’s nothing like it. It is a huge undertaking with so many ups and downs. It’s an odyssey. I co-created and executive produced a game show that my one of my partners and I literally started developing by drawing it out on a scratch piece of paper. Then, fast-forward to a couple of years later, we walk onto a massive set on the Sony lot where we were engulfed by enormous real-life versions of the original napkin sketches. We looked at each other and I said, “I feel like we just got trapped in Tron.” Then, to have that show air on The CW network, as well as in numerous other countries, and be honored at a big international awards show in Brussels… those are certainly a series of pinch-me experiences.
What about least favorite experiences or maybe most challenging?
Let’s stay away from the least favorite. I like to be positive or at least constructive.
As far as challenging, a few pretty recent things pop to mind. I appeared in a movie for Lifetime called Conrad & Michelle as Gayle Carter, the mother of accused “text killer” Michelle Carter, who was played by Bella Thorne. It was based a real story and we were provided with a ton of research about these people. At first as an actor, you dig in. But then, I started feeling invasive and deeply sorry and sad about what these people had gone through. I worried about victimizing them again by telling their tragic story. Thankfully, Lifetime handled the movie in a constructive manner by airing PSA’s from the main actor about suicide and bullying prevention throughout the whole movie.
Do you prefer being in front of or behind the camera more?
I started as an actor, and I’m still as passionate about and love it. But I really enjoy all of it. Acting, writing, and producing are all challenging careers, but they are all rewarding and fulfilling to me in different ways to different aspects of my personality. I’d say I’m right-brained and left-brained. I love being creative with acting and writing, but I also enjoy the practicality of developing business strategies, crunching numbers, and solving logistical problems.
Do you think it’s an advantage for actors to be multi-hyphenates in the entertainment industry?
Well, it’s a definite anecdote to boredom! All joking aside, there are numerous undeniable advantages, but let’s cover only 2 or 3 here because I could do a huge, long TED talk on this! First, writing and producing help actors learn a ton about the overall industry and the other creative processes and business considerations that go into a project. As actors, we flesh out our own characters but we have limited knowledge about the whole project including future scripts, financial limitations, upcoming cast changes because a co-star is moving on to a different project soon, etc. We have to learn to trust the collaboration process, and these other jobs shed light on so many elements of the process that actors are rarely privy to.
The second, third, and fourth advantages are, it gives actors more options! Obviously, it gives you more options for employment. But it also gives you more options to get your name out there and more chances to meet more people in the industry. I can relate this directly to my employment on AMBITIONS for you. A few years ago, a blogger did a story about me: an actress who was recurring on a CW show that had also produced a game show. He thought it was an interesting combo. That blogger was Jamey Giddens who several years later created AMBITIONS. I was not offered the role of Juniper, I got an audition through the casting office. But when my audition made it to Jamey, he told me he said, “I know her!” I think it’s possible that might have given me some advantage as casting decisions were being made.
Lastly, and most therapeutically, actors will benefit from learning how and why casting decisions are made. Actors deal with a ton of rejection and rarely hear why we don’t get hired. It’s hard not to take it personally and let insecurities creep in. However, there are so many factors that go into casting. It was a great relief and very liberating for me as an artist to see with my own eyes that the reasons an actor is not hired are very rarely personal or very rarely based solely on your audition.
There are moments when it is not a consensus among all decision makers to choose who should be cast. You could have been the favorite of some decision maker, and it will pay off later in the same project, or on another.
Do you have any upcoming projects you want to mention?
Yes. Several. I just finished shooting the season finale of Queen Sugar. As an actor. I love the gritty realistic family relationships on that show and appreciate that Ava DuVernay has given so many talented females opportunities to direct episodes.
There are several other projects on the horizon that I’m excited about, but there are also some non-disclosure agreements. So, I can’t share as much as I would like to but…The thing I am most excited about is producing a project based on a New York Times Best Seller that I have optioned. We are very close to being able to announce some exciting attachments to that project. I also have a game show that is optioned and in development with a network right now and hopefully we will be allowed to announce that soon too. On the acting side of things, I am attached to an indie film that is a faith-based family-friendly film and like all actors, I have my fingers crossed on a couple of pending pretty cool roles I’ve done callbacks and chemistry reads on. As I said, it’s never boring and always challenging.
Featured Image Credit: Magen Marie Photography.
Connect with Deena: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0226784/
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